Do superhero toys really suck?

Electrical tape? Is this gonna end up like that episode of Cops with the home made nunchucks by way of broomstick and duct tape getting confiscated?
-Mason

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Matthewalt &quot;I actually kinda LIKE that approach! You know: let's make a TOY. Remember those? Products designed to be played with without breaking? DO YOU REMEMBER, LOVE?!&quot;

Saw the squishy plastic (not NERF) Mjolnir in Target last night, and it has a sound effect, light up ring at the top, with a Jumbo type spring loaded missle launcher, in the top center. The top ring w/hole for the missle looks exactly like a squeaky toy squeaker. So naturally , I was VERY dissapointed when a test whack of the hammer, on a random kid passing by, produced no squeak. C'mon now!

Hate to dash all your hopes, but it has a label right on top, that distinctly says:
"Do not poke or swing at people or animals."

Sanjeev Wrote:
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> What the fuck... no "Mjolnir"??

It's probably a dumbing-down thing by the marketing department. No mom or dad that's going to buy this thing for their kid will know what a Mjolnir is, how it is spelled, or how to pronounce it. "Thor's Hammer" hits the eighth grade reading level demographic perfectly. Besides, foreign words are scary.

The spelling of Mjolnir is inconsistent even in standard use. So, I don't think it's too big a deal to leave it off.

On an unrelated note, I picked up a sleeveless Little Thor. This is a good toy, far superior in quality to any other comic booky toys on the shelves at the moment. Matte paint, durable plastic, solid articulation, and good fit-n-finish all around. They make Hasbro's Iron Man and Wolverine movie toys look like bootlegs. It's crazy how much better quality went into the line considering movie year toys are typically rushed, disposable crap. Someone at Hasbro must have a big, stiff boner for Thor. Go figure.

The only downer is that the lineup is going to be mostly human characters. Anthony Hopkins action figures. I'm sure kids will just go crazy over that. Haw.

It probably helps when you can use the figure sculpt 20 different times with different accessories. But is it really that good? Is there one coming out soon with his hat? Or is this going to be like most movie lines, where the initial wave of figures comes out, inundates the market, then sits on pegs so that retailers pass up subsequent waves (I'm looking at you Iron Man and GI Joe).

fujishig Wrote:
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> It probably helps when you can use the figure
> sculpt 20 different times with different
> accessories. But is it really that good?

It is. Toss the mega-accessories in the trash though. I think Hasbro expects you to anyway. The figure I bought didn't even have instructions on how to "transform" the sword into a hammer.

> Is there one coming out soon with his hat?

Yeah, Sanjeev posted a pic of it: [toyboxdx.com] . Between that and the sleeveless version I think you'll get all the Thor you could want. The character doesn't exactly lend itself to variations.

> Or is this going to be like most movie lines, where the
> initial wave of figures comes out, inundates the
> market, then sits on pegs so that retailers pass
> up subsequent waves (I'm looking at you Iron Man
> and GI Joe).

Probably. But I don't think it will be a problem. Unless you really want a bunch of neo-Norse doods to fill your shelves. And, really, does anyone want a slew of human action figures? I usually hated those unless they were wearing helmets or masks. Pretty much still do. Give me monsters, aliens, robots, and titty dancers instead!

When your single defining attribute is the ability to grow, you're not that much more interesting than a male porn star.

That said, when I was a kid, I scissored the antennas off my Zak Sectaurs figure, placed him among my smaller action figures, and pretended he was Goliath. These days I don't have to maim an unfortunate toy to get my kicks.

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Matthewalt &quot;I actually kinda LIKE that approach! You know: let's make a TOY. Remember those? Products designed to be played with without breaking? DO YOU REMEMBER, LOVE?!&quot;

Well the original was made of Uru not Nerf foam so yeah. When I was in the store I was smiling ear to ear and my girlfriend was happy for me because she's awesome and really supportive...then we got it home and she was less happy. (bonk)
-Mason

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Matthewalt &quot;I actually kinda LIKE that approach! You know: let's make a TOY. Remember those? Products designed to be played with without breaking? DO YOU REMEMBER, LOVE?!&quot;

Interesting Mjonir-related Dumbing Down of America moment - throughout the Matrix movies, they consistently refer to this vessel called "The Hammer". When watching in theatres, I thought it odd that the other vessels have historical and mythical names (Nebuchadnezzar, Logos, etc.) and this one vessel is named after a popular carpentry tool. During the "making of" sections of the DVD, realization sets in as EVERYONE in the production pronounced the same vessel's name as "Muh jole ner". I guess the resident linguist was pining for the fjords, and regained consciousness during the last few days of post-production.

Since this is the movie version the runes are on the top of the hammer (and not the comic book version inscription on the side in English) that have the famous saying. My girlfriend pointed out the lettering on top and I told her they were Nordic runes, cleared my throat, and slowly "translated" them. She was amazed that I could read runic writing ;-) I had to come clean after.
-Mason

P.S. If you don't know it's "Whosoever Holds This Hammer, If He Be Worthy, Shall Possess The Power Of Thor".

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Matthewalt &quot;I actually kinda LIKE that approach! You know: let's make a TOY. Remember those? Products designed to be played with without breaking? DO YOU REMEMBER, LOVE?!&quot;

So I walk into Wallyworld last night, hoping to pick up an ST Mjolnir. All sold out. They just had a couple DX Mjolnirs left...so I gave it a shot.

How does Mjolnir of Color stand up to the blonde surfer edition? Well, instead of Nerf-esque foam, it's simply thin, hollow vinyl. It's totally like a squeak toy--if you squeeze the head of the hammer, air hisses out and the whole thing collapses (it springs back almost instantly, though). So you can totally bash people with it...but I still prefer Nerf material.

Anyway, it's got a couple gimmicks. There's a dual-action trigger that activates a decent thunder strike sound effect and makes the "engraved" clear plastic ring at the top flash blue in time with the sounds. It's actually fairly well done, but based on the promo images we've seen, I thought the whole hammer head was going to be dark/smoky translucent vinyl, and the whole thing was gonna light up when you bumped the thing (like the extending electronic lightsabers).

The trigger can also...fire a missile!?

Yep. It fits into the round opening at the top. Decent range...but pretty stupid-looking. If I'm bored, I'll try to come up with a clear, jagged replacement for the blue rubber tip that mimics the look of static electricity better...

What's kinda weird is that the two trigger actions are completely independent. Like, you can either shoot the missile or activate the lights/sounds. You'd think they'd at least couple the missile launch with the lights and sounds...

I kinda hated it...so I decided to see what a little acetone would do to it. I mean, hey, it's only a $20 toy--if I ruined it, so what? Well, as it turned out, I discovered something even weirder about this thing...

The acetone ripped the warning right off...but it also smeared the dark grey...revealing lighter grey underneath. BUH?? I figured the thing was just molded in dark grey vinyl, but apparently, it's molded in (proper) light grey vinyl and is painted dark grey.

Well, on its own, the big light grey smear kinda looked like shit...but a second later, it hit me: weathering!

I kinda went nuts with the acetone wipes and started buffing all the edges to put "wear" on ol' DX Mjolnir. I left it pretty rough, but it's actually pretty bitchin'!

The effect is fairly subtle, but I think it's a huge improvement over the super-clean stock look. But I'm still baffled why the toy wasn't just shot in dark grey vinyl. I'm almost wondering if the original intent was to do a factory acetone wipe to weather the thing like I did.

Anyway, after that ten minutes of work, I think it looks pretty sick now. The gimmicks are meh, but it's substantially bigger than the ST. I still prefer Nerf foam, but this is still bonk-worthy. I like it.

Nice weathering job on the South Asian variant, Reverend Jeev. It'd be a much nicer toy without that silly port at the top.

Had the nephews over this weekend and the Asian variant Mee-Yo-Ner was a definite hit. The two-year-old spends most of the afternoon walking around and slamming it into his palm, like he's about to mug someone with it. The best part is when the older one throws it at my brother. My brother gets annoyed, but his kid goes, "I was waiting for it to fly back to me." Ah, kids.

Yeah, the nerf hammer was a HUGE hit with the nephews. Combine with the hulk hands from a few years back and big fun was had by all...They literally disappeared into the back yard for an hour. When I went looking for them they had set up a bunch of monsters from the tub-o-cheap bandai kaiju on top of the woodpile shooting range fashion and were taking turns throwing the hammer at them...Good Times...

gingaio Wrote:
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> Nice weathering job on the South Asian variant,
> Reverend Jeev. It'd be a much nicer toy without
> that silly port at the top.
>
> Had the nephews over this weekend and the Asian
> variant Mee-Yo-Ner was a definite hit. The
> two-year-old spends most of the afternoon walking
> around and slamming it into his palm, like he's
> about to mug someone with it. The best part is
> when the older one throws it at my brother. My
> brother gets annoyed, but his kid goes, "I was
> waiting for it to fly back to me." Ah, kids.